#  Silver stories: Reflections of value in a precious metal 

 



Many of us know silver today as a shiny and expensive metal. Yet this picture conceals a deeper history. The story of one particular place, Potosí in today’s Bolivia, guides us toward a tale of lost labor, exploited land, and redefined value.

   ![Silver ore](/sites/g/files/omnuum7766/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/measuring-difference/files/silver_ore_low.png?itok=ahwu5Ftc) 

 

*Silver ore. #95327, on Loan from the Harvard Mineralogy Collection*Silver ore, by itself, is perhaps not particularly striking. This sample, from the ore deposits in Potosí, gives an example of the raw material.

   ![Inca tupa (pin for a shawl)](/sites/g/files/omnuum7766/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/measuring-difference/files/inca_tupa_low.png?itok=1PXXohRZ) 

 

*\# 969-26-30/8635, on Loan from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University. "Gift" of Gordon Bancroft Guptill, 1969.*For millennia, people have used ‘precious’ metals to make objects that they can treasure. Sometimes, these objects are made painstakingly and personally. For example, this Inca Tupu was a kind of pin used to fasten clothing. These were often shown in colonial descriptions and drawings of Andean women. Elegant tupus were worn by Indigenous elites to show their high social status.

   ![Small metal llama](/sites/g/files/omnuum7766/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/measuring-difference/files/llama_low.png?itok=8OmujvSt) 

 

*\#37-92-30/1633, On Loan from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University.*This llama, though made of a different metal, also tells a story of personal and communal value. Llamas and their relatives were very important in the daily life of the pre-columbian Andes. Small figures like this one might have been made as ritual offerings.

These objects suggest one way of thinking about value.

   ![Depiction Of The Potosí Silver Mine, c. 1585, with a mountain in the background, and stick-figure workers](/sites/g/files/omnuum7766/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/measuring-difference/files/potosi_mine_low.png?itok=p498mDYw) 

 

[Depiction Of The Potosí Silver Mine, c. 1585. Image Courtesy of the Hispanic Society of America, ](https://projects.mcah.columbia.edu/hispanic/monographs/silver-mine.php)Colonialism brought a different approach to understanding value. Seeing the land as a resource to be exploited enabled mass profit. The more silver ore that could be extracted, the better. After the discovery of silver deposits in the 1540s, the mine at Potosí turned ore like the sample above into one of the largest profit-making sites on Earth.

Profit for whom? A vast amount of labor was required, but those who labored most would not share in the profits, or even in the recognition. In this depiction of Potosí, the workers – human and animal, Indigenous and enslaved – were made anonymous. The landscape was transformed technologically in order to be exploited in service of foreign profit. Note the Christian cross on the summit of the Cerro Garda de Potosí, the Spanish name of the mountain in the background.

   ![Three silver objects](/sites/g/files/omnuum7766/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/measuring-difference/files/silver_objects_low.png?itok=Zo6zfxqW) 

 

*Silver Sugar Scissors (c. 1760), Caster (1684-1685), & Bowl and Cover (1716-1717) Made Of American Silver, London. #1949.114.62, #1949.114.120, & #1949.114.118.A-B, On Loan from the Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Harvard University. Bequest of Archibald A. Hutchinson, Esq., 1949 .*The extracted Potosí silver was taken to Europe, where silversmiths increased its value by crafting it into fancy, expensive items for the wealthy, far removed from the forced labor in the mines. Here, the silver was reshaped to hold another precious item often extracted from American land by enslaved laborers: sugar.

   ![Two silver real coins, made of Potosi silver](/sites/g/files/omnuum7766/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/measuring-difference/files/silver_coin_low.png?itok=KY5WoFVJ) 

 

*Coin Of Potosí Silver, Spain, c. 1759, #1974.27.275, On Loan from the Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Harvard University, A Gift from Arthur W. Arundel through the Harvard Fund Council, Class of 1951, 1974*Some of the silver, of course, was melted into coins, stamped with Spanish royal markings, and given a monetary value, representing control over land and labor. The overlapping ‘P’ and ‘S’ symbol show that the silver for this coin came from Potosí.